Note u — BOOK V.

There is (it seems) in Wits and Arts, as in all Things beside, a kind of circular Progress: They have their Birth, their Growth, their Flourishing, their Failing, their Fading; and within a while after, their Resurrection, and Reflourishing again. The Arts flourished for a long Time among the Persians, the Chaldæans, the Ægyptians.——But afterwards the Grecians got the start of them, and are now become as barbarous themselves, as formerly they esteemed all besides themselves to be. About the Birth of Christ, Learning began to flourish in Italy, and spread all over Christendom; till the Goths, Huns, and Vandals ransacked the Libraries, and defaced almost all the Monuments of Antiquity: so that the Lamp of Learning seemed to be put out for near the Space of 1000 Years, till the first Mansor, king of Africa and Spain, raised up, and spurred forward the Arabian Wits, by great Rewards and Encouragement. Afterwards Petrarch opened such Libraries as were undemolished. He was seconded by Boccace, and John of Ravenna, and soon after by Aretine, Philelphus, Valla, &c. And those were followed by Æneas Sylvius, Angelus Politianus, Hermolaus Barbarus, Marsilius Ficinus, and Joh. Picus, of Mirandula. These were backed by Rud. Agricola, Reucline, Melancthon, Joach. Camerarius, Wolphlazius, Beat. Rhenanus, Almaines; By Erasmus of Rotterdam; Vives a Spaniard; Bembus, Sadoletus, Eugubinus, Italians: Turnebus, Muretus, Ramus, Pithæus, Budæus, Amiot, Scaliger, Frenchmen; Sir Tho. More and Linaker, Englishmen. And about this Time, even those Northern Nations yielded their great Men; Denmark yielded Olaus Magnus, Holster, Tycho Brahe, and Hemingius; and Poland, Hosius, Frixius, and Crumerus. But to name the Worthies that followed these, down to the present Time, would be endless, and next to impossible. See therefore Hakewill’s Apolog. L. 3. c. 6. §. 2.